High polarization and wake-up free ferroelectric characteristics in ultrathin Hf_0.5Zr_0.5O₂ devices by control of oxygen-deficient layer

The formation of an interfacial layer is believed to affect the ferroelectric properties in HfO2 based ferroelectric devices. The atomic layer deposited devices continue suffering from a poor bottom interfacial condition, since the formation of bottom interface is severely affected by atomic layer deposition and annealing process. Herein, the formation of bottom interfacial layer was controlled through deposition of different bottom electrodes (BE) in device structure W/HZO/BE. The transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analyses done on devices W/HZO/W and W/HZO/IrO (x) suggest the strong effect of IrO (x) in controlling bottom interfacial layer formation while W/HZO/W badly suffers from interfacial layer formation. W/HZO/IrO (x) devices show high remnant polarization (2P (r)) similar to 53 mu C cm(-2), wake-up free endurance cycling characteristics, low leakage current with demonstration of low annealing temperature requirement as low as 350 degrees C, valuable for back-end-of-line integration. Further, sub-5 nm HZO thicknesses-based W/HZO/IrO (x) devices demonstrate high 2P (r) and wake-up free ferroelectric characteristics, which can be promising for low power and high-density memory applications. 2.2 nm, 3 nm, and 4 nm HZO based W/HZO/IrO (x) devices show 2P (r) values 13.54, 22.4, 38.23 mu C cm(-2) at 4 MV cm(-1) and 19.96, 30.17, 48.34 mu C cm(-2) at 5 MV cm(-1), respectively, with demonstration of wake-up free ferroelectric characteristics.